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Chakradatta

Cakradatta चक्रदत्त

specialty Tier 4 sanskrit-english cosmetic-relevance 4/5
Author / compilerChakrapani Datta
Composedc. 1060 CE

Significance for cosmetology

Chakradatta — the Cakradatta of Chakrapani Datta (the famous 11th-century Bengali commentator on Charaka) — is a practical formulary organised disease-by-disease. Where Charaka and Sushruta interleave theory with recipes, Chakradatta is pure prescription: for condition X, take these herbs in these proportions, prepared this way.

For cosmetology, the Kshudra-Roga Adhikara is the key chapter. It contains lepas specifically named:

  • Mukha-Kantikara (“face-radiance giver”) — a complexion-improving face pack
  • Mukha-Saundarya-kara (“face-beauty giver”) — another general beauty lepa
  • Vyanga-hara — anti-melasma
  • Yuvana-pidaka-hara — anti-acne

These named formulas are the direct ancestors of modern named cosmetic products. The Sushruta Cikitsa 25.21 lepa we have catalogued as Recipe B4 in our face-recipes file is essentially this Chakradatta Mukha-Saundarya-kara formula.

Extraction notes

The Wisdomlib HTML transcription of Chakradatta was attempted but the book URL we tried (/hinduism/book/chakradatta) returned 404. Wisdomlib does index Chakradatta but under a different slug that we did not identify in this extraction pass. Recipes attributed to Chakradatta in this formulary are cross-references from Sushruta and Bhavaprakasha, not direct extraction.

For full Chakradatta extraction: P.V. Sharma’s English translation (Chaukhamba 1994) is the standard reference but copyright-restricted. The Wisdomlib HTML version, once correctly located, can be scraped with the same toolchain used for Sushruta and Charaka.

Beauty-relevant chapters

  • Kshudra-Roga Adhikara — Mukha-kantikara and Mukha-saundaryakara lepas (specifically named beauty face packs)
  • Yoni-Roga Adhikara — Stri-saundaryakara formulations
  • Palita-Khalitya Adhikara — anti-greying and anti-baldness

Translations & editions

TranslatorYearPublisherLicense
Priya Vrat Sharma (English) 1994 Chaukhamba Orientalia copyright
Wisdomlib (HTML transcription) — — public-domain

Recipes citing this source (2)